


Fireside

by ang3lba3



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Actually Pretty Fluffy, Alternate Universe - Ishbalan | Ishvalan, Alternate Universe - War, Awkward Flirting, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Implied One Sided Roy/Maes, Implied Sexual Content, Ishbalan War, Ishvalan War, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-18 20:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11882337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ang3lba3/pseuds/ang3lba3
Summary: It's not easy to wind down after another day in battle for two State Alchemists.Roy/Ed Week, Day 3





	Fireside

**Author's Note:**

> Ed's probably around 18-19 and Roy early 20's for this. My first fic for this fandom so be gentle or whatever, pls

“I don’t understand you, Fullmetal,” Roy admits.

The fire is burning down, and they’re not on watch but fuck if they can sleep. It seems like after the amount of energy he’d channeled through him that day he should be rubbed raw inside and exhausted, but instead he was still shaking from the electric aftershocks in his hands. He can see from the way Fullmetal keeps shaking his hands out that he has the same problem.

“What’s to fuckin’ get, city boy?” Fullmetal asks, slumps further against the small wall of hardened desert earth that he’d alchemised to rest against as he watches the fire.

“Ironic, someone your size calling me ‘boy’,” Roy says, just to watch Fullmetal snarl.

Fullmetal does not disappoint.

_“Who you calling so small he needed a special order uniform?!”_

Roy laughs, despite there being no room in this usual game of theirs for his genuine amusement.

But he’s tired, and Fullmetal was actually pretty decent when he wasn't being a little shit.

“Oh, fuck off, Major Bastard,” Fullmetal grumbles, but Roy thinks he can see the hint of teeth glinting from the fire in an expression that _could_ be a smile.

“I just…” Roy tries to figure out how he wants to phrase it. Fullmetal brushes and braids his nonregulation hair almost religiously, can draw a perfect transmutation circle for something that'd never been done in two minutes with nothing but sand and his fingers, moves like something so dangerous that Roy can almost forget how young he is, follows orders as they suit him or not at all in a way that leaves the brass commending him…

“You’re not draft,” Fullmetal says, and he unbraids his hair, pulls a comb from inside his jacket. “So, no, you wouldn’t.”

Roy laughs, dryly. “Fullmetal, if you think I’m here because I want to be just because I didn’t get a letter with my name on it, then you’re not as smart as everyone thinks.”

Fullmetal turns that over in his head for a moment, starting to comb his hair from the bottom up. It’s soothing to watch. Roy grew up with more women around than men, and Fullmetal is _far_ from a woman, but he has longer hair than most of his aunts did.

“Hughes?” Fullmetal asks.

Roy shrugs, swallows, glances away when Fullmetal glances at him. Hughes is. 

Complicated.

“And Hawkeye followed you,” he said to Roy’s non-answer. “Fuck. At least the people I left for stayed where I goddamn left them.”

“Did you join before or after the letter came?” Roy asks, not really because he expects an answer to such a personal question, but because he’s curious.

“Before,” Fullmetal answers. The comb rips through his hair a bit too harshly, and he lets a breath out through his nose. “Al woulda made a good case to be drafted instead of me, even if I’m the oldest, if I gave him half a chance.”

Fullmetal dropped his hair and put the comb away, gesturing for Roy to come closer. Roy did, curiosity building, as well as that familiar ache he got around the other alchemist.

“You know why they call me Fullmetal?” he asked, and his golden eyes were steady on Roy’s, and far too close. Roy’s throat was dry. It was always dry, they were in a fucking _desert_ , but it was worse all of a sudden, and so he just shook his head. “Guess.”

“Uh,” Roy got out, voice raspy. The fire made Fullmetal’s eyes glow. “You work best with earth, so…”

He trails off with a shrug. It’s unfair to ask him to fucking think right now.

Fullmetal sighs, like he’s disappointed in him, and it makes Roy wince. “Fuckin’ thought so. Incredible any of you morons are even certified.”

Fullmetal grabs one of Roy’s hands, lays it flat on the ground in front of them. Then he takes off one of his own gloves, and lays his hand beside Roy’s.

“Oh,” Roy says softly, staring at the automail. It’s hard to see in the dark, but he’s pretty sure there’s blood caked into the joints of the knuckles. If there’s one thing he’s gotten good at recognizing in all lightings lately, it’s blood.

“Yeah, ‘oh’,” Fullmetal says, but it’s amused, not annoyed.

“It’s gorgeous work,” Roy says, and the words come out before he has time to turn the reverent awe into something more neutral.

Fullmetal’s shoulders hunch up, and he shoves his hand into the sand rather than bothering to take the time to put back on the glove.

“Got some kinda fuckin amputee fetish, Flame?”

Roy makes a noise of disbelieving disgust and shock, twisting to face Fullmetal.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he demands.

“I’ve seen you watching me,” Fullmetal continues, and it’s interrogative rather than accusatory. “I don’t know what your angle is, but you’re looking, and I want you to tell me _why.”_

Roy flushes, turns his head to stare directly into the fire.

“I’m hardly the only one,” he manages, because it’s true, and deflection is his best bet here. “It’s not everyday someone of your stature manages to become a State Alchemist.”

Even if that was hardly the reason most of them were looking. Or at least, not all of it.

“Ah, so it’s a size kink,” Fullmetal says wisely instead of the expected explosion, and Roy sputters, reaches over to shove Fullmetal’s shoulder like he would with Maes or Riza, and Fullmetal—

Lets him.

Fullmetal’s grinning, and the way the shadows frame his face makes it feral.

“Why you lookin at me, Roy?” Fullmetal says, staring straight into his eyes, and the use of his actual name makes Roy shiver.

The grin turns smug, and Fullmetal leans forward, dropping his voice to a whisper that Roy can barely hear over the crackle of the fire.

“Tell me why, and I might even let you touch,” he breathes.

“Because you’re one of the only things here worth looking at long enough to remember,” Roy says, and the words scrape their way up his dry throat. Fullmetal’s eyes widen for just a second, surprised.

“Shit, and I thought you were going to say something about my ass,” he says, leaning back, the smug grin still there, but a little shaken. He holds out a hand to Roy. “Ed. Edward Elric.”

Roy takes the hand, shakes, manages to keep eye contact when his heart is trying to evacuate his ribs by breaking them open and jumping out of his chest. “Roy Mustang.”

Edward licks his lips, and doesn’t let go of Roy’s hand for a second longer than what could be considered a normal handshake.

“I’ve got a… book you might be interested in,” Ed says, raising an eyebrow, standing.

“Oh?” Roy says, drawn to his feet by the magnetism that is _Ed,_ staring down at the man who seems to tower over him despite the two heads height difference.

Ed’s eyes dance. “Yeah. ‘s in my tent. Wanna ‘come’?”

He actually makes the goddamn quotation marks with his fingers in the air, and Roy’s shoulders hunch in and up as he tries not to laugh out loud.

“I’m always _up_ for educational enrichment,” Roy manages.

Ed’s smile turns cocky, and a finger reaches up to twirl a strand of the hair still loose around his shoulders. “Good thing I’m practically a pot of gold.”

Roy can’t manage the tiny noise of amusement that escapes him, refuses to acknowledge it was a giggle. “Show me your treasure trail.”

“Oh my god, just—” Ed’s laughing now, low as he can, and grabs Roy by the wrist to drag him off in the direction of his beige tent.

War is—war is hell, yeah. There isn’t arguing with that. It’s glaring sun and silver steel and the smell of burning flesh and the taste of blood and sand in every crevice in the human body and constant low level dehydration but—

If war is hell, at least there’s sinners like Ed to pass the time with.

**Author's Note:**

> hello, yes, i've fallen into FMA fandom and i can't get up 
> 
> sorry if anyones OOC i havent actually rewatched that much, just read a disgusting amount of fanfiction. I realize they both should probably be more upset rn being at war and all but, you know, sometimes you just got stop angsting and flirt with the boy you've got a crush on


End file.
